nothing is impossible. But some will say, how are the dead raised up? and with what bodies do they

come?

The reply is, God giveth a body as it pleaseth him. Concerning that change, we know nothing but what has been revealed. Our present powers of thought are incapable of comprehending or describing where. in it consists. We can do no more, than strip of their imperfection, our ideas of the present body, in describing the state of believers at the resurrection. And we shall be changed,

1. From a state of corruption, to one of incorruption. And the dead shall be raised incorruptible. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.

As the seed is sown in the earth, so is the human body placed in this world in a state of frailty, liable to disease and decay; and it is buried in the grave, in order to undergo putrefaction. When its vitality becomes extinct, it no longer resists the action of surrounding elements. It melts, it ferments, it becomes a mass of corruption. But it is raised up, incapable of dissolution or disorder. It is still the same body, the same mass of matter, but it has undergone an astonishing alteration. The change too is a happy one.

Full well do we know, that by sin death entered into the world, and that its painful effects are felt in the body. Our time is consumed by weakness and disease, and by the necessary attention to our innumerable wants. Our intellectual exertions are impeded by sensible pains; and our thoughts are incessantly diverted from plans of spiritual improvement, by the sorrows of this life. How happy, then, the change which renders this body incorruptible! Delivered from all the ills of life, we shall enter into the land of peace, where the inhabitants shall not say, I am si k, and the people that dwell therein, have their iniquities forgiven them.

It is a change from dishonour to glory. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory.

During their abode on earth, the saints are poor, and comparatively contemptible. The body is liable to deformity and defilement. We are despised by the world, and degraded by our iniquities. At death, the body is committed to the dust; the dishonoured mass of humbled matter being unworthy of occupying any longer the attention, or the flatteries, or the friendship of the living. But it is raised in glory. It is eternally delivered from sin and the curse due to sin, from death, and from the grave. It is solemnly recognized as the property, the purchased property, of the Saviour; and it receives from him distinguished honour. It is crowned with glory. We shall walk in fine linen, clean and white. umphantly raised from the bondage of the king of terrors, we shall be admitted into the presence of the glorious Lord, fashioned according to the glorified body of him who sitteth upon the throne.

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3. It is a change from debility to unabating vigour and strength. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.

Here we must frequently, nay, always, feel our weakness. A little exertion exhausts our strength. A third of the life of man is employed in taking nourishment, and rest, and sleep, in order to recover the strength of wearied nature. Languor is induced by labour, by study, and even by amusements. In the house of God, which believers love, and where they desire to dwell, they feel that they cannot constantly abide, while they are present in the body. Even devotional exercises expend muscular power, and deprive the nervous system of its energy. The frailty of the body is communicated to its spiritual companion, and the soul is overpowered by the multitude of its own thoughts. We are incapable of VOL. IV.-No. III.

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ong and assiduous attention to the most desirable objects.

Many of the saints are, for months and years, con. fined to a weary bed. Old age reduces the most ro-: bust to a second childhood. Death puts an end to strength, and triumphs over the pride and glory of human clay. Goliath falls, and bites the dust with which his decaying frame is about to assimilate. Samson too, yields the strength at which the Philistines trembled, and mingles the particles of his own enfeebled body with those of the foes whom he had slain. The tongue, which by its eloquence electrified the admiring throng, and the hand which wielded the sceptre of empire, deprived of all their power and their terror, are lodged, with the dust of Alexander the conqueror, in the silent grave. But yet we shall be changed. The bodies of the saints shall be raised in power. Endowed with vigorous and healthy qualities, they shall for ever be separated from infirmity. At the resurrection, the body becomes a fit and unwearied companion to the glorified soul, being enabled" to execute its will, and to join with it in all its noble operations and employments, without weariness and fainting; and to sustain, without the least uneasiness, the exceeding and eternal weight of glory that shall be put upon it." 2 Cor. iv. 7.

4. It is changed from a gross and earthly condition, into a state of celestial refinement. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. As we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

The spirituality of the body, at the resurrection, is not opposed to its materiality: for body must continue to be matter through eternity. As in respect to the souls of believers in this life, their spirituality is opposed to the carnal mind of unbelievers, without controverting the doctrine of the immateriality of the mind; so, upon the same principle,

the spiritual body is opposed to the natural body, without denying the materiality of either. The carnal mind becomes spiritual, by being quickened of the Holy Ghost-born of the Spirit; and that which it sown a natural body, is raised a spiritual body, because the last Adam, whose heavenly image we shall then bear, is made a quickening spirit, and will quicken our mortal bodies by his Spirit, that dwelleth in us. Then shall this mortal put on immortality. The body as well as the soul shall be immortal after the resurrection.

Spiritual is, in this connexion, employed not as a philosophical, but as a theological term, and is capable of as correct an application to matter, as it is to mind. It refers to that kind of life, which is communicated by the third person of the trinity acting his part in the economy of grace; and is as distinct from rational and animal life, as it is from vegetable life. Speaking theologically, spirit is as distinct from soul, as it is from body. 1 Thess. v. 23. And I pray God your whole SPIRIT, and soUL, and BODY, be preserved blameless, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our souls become spiritual at conversion, and our bodies spiritual at the resurrection. It is sown in a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. It is endowed, by the Holy Ghost, with a life pure and indestructible.

The animal frame, as it subsists in the present world, is maintained and refreshed by the tribute which it levies, from the several kingdoms of nature. It contains in itself the seeds of decay. Deprive it of its nourishment, and it droops and dies. Its functions, worn down by the very actions upon which the preservation of life depends, are in time destroyed, and the whole body becomes an inanimate lump. The elements are in arms against us. Death lurks under every thing which we handle, or eat, or drink. Poison floats upon the breeze, and enters impercepti

ble through the pores of our flesh. Withhold, or communicate, the air, the water, or the bread, on which we live, beyond the due proportion, and the consequence is pain-is death.

The natural body is laid senseless in the grave. But it shall be raised a spiritual body. -Quickened by the Spirit of life, it shall arise to everlasting life, with a new and more refined contexture of all its parts; and it is no longer dependent on the creatures of this world for its support. The precise nature of the change we cannot indeed describe; but there can be no doubt of its beauty or its excellence. From our ignorance we cannot justly argue the improbability of this doctrine.The change effected in the sensible qualities of bodies, even upon earth, while the substance is the same, is astonishing, if not incredible, to the novice, although it is familiar to the man of science. How vast the difference, both in appearance and value, between a piece of charcoal and a diamond of the brightest lustre! and yet, as it respects their component atoms, there is little difference between the oxyd and the chrystal of carbon.

The change too, which the art of man is capable of effecting on the qualities of bodies, is a subject of admiration. Between the burnished brass, the polished steel, and the ore from which they have been extracted, how striking the difference! Nor is it less between the sand and the transparent glass into which it is formed by human art. Who, then, shall attempt to define the alteration produced upon the body of man by the holy Spirit? Let the body be rendered independent of earthly nourishment; let it be emancipated from the law of gravitation, which restrains its motions in this world; let it be endowed with immortality; in a word, let it become a spiritual body, and then shall it shine with the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars, for ever and ever.